


Islands of Simplicity

by SharaMichaels



Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/M, Grief/Mourning, Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-20
Updated: 2019-06-20
Packaged: 2020-05-15 13:12:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19296451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SharaMichaels/pseuds/SharaMichaels
Summary: La Sorelli finds out about Philippe's death from a newspapers. She spends the night remembering their relationship and ponders about love. (An updated version of "Let Them Talk", a fic I posted in 2016).





	Islands of Simplicity

“I suppose from now on Sorelli will have to carry her shoes by herself.”

La Sorelli stopped dead in her track next to the lot of giggling young ballerinas. They cast a quick glance in her direction and fell silent, their small cheeks flushing under the prim-ballerina’s shadow.

“Excuse me—” she began, but the girls were quick on their feet and vanished before she had a chance to question them.

A bleak premonition started in Sorelli’s heart as she exited the opera house and waited for the carriage to be ready. On the sidewalk opposite to her, a young boy paused with his cigarette hanging at the corner of his parted lips. His eyes lingered on her figure. Very unusual. She was accustomed with the way men looked at her – up and down, paying extra attention to her hips, with mischievous smiles painted on their faces. There was none of that in the stranger’s eyes; just an odd curiosity, similar to the way one might watch a terminally ill patient.

“What are you looking at?” she shouted.

The boy hid his face in the lifted collar of his coat and ran away. As Sorelli’s driver brought the carriage in front of the opera’s main entrance, she was still looking in the direction of the boy, pondering.

There was a small shop near her building and she demanded the driver drop her there. Upon arriving at her destination, Sorelli hesitated in front of the shop’s door. Questions swarmed in her head. Some answers she would never know, some answers she would probably learn in the next few minutes. And she could think of few things more frightening than answers.

She walked into the shop with her head held high and a polite smile on her lips. Truly a woman of the world. She exchanged pleasantries with the shop owner before asking the question that made her hands tremble.

“Do you have any more newspapers left? I was busy this morning and did not have time to pick up today’s.”

“Of course, Madame,” the man behind the counter replied. He had to check the back room; Sorelli’s heart picked up.

The man came back and set the newspaper down. The world became fuzzy at the edges, slowly fading away, until all there was left was her gloved hands clumsily turning the grey pages. She was expecting to see Philippe’s name. But she wasn’t expecting the headline on page three.

# Count of Chagny found dead in suspicious circumstances

Her heart was pounding. Her hands lost control and dropped the paper. A dog was barking outside. There was a quarrel going on at the end of the street, someone shouting “son of a bitch!”. A pain in her stomach – her hand gripping tightly, for what purpose, nobody knew. And the shop owner’s voice, frantic and shaky.

“Madame? Madame, are you ill?”

She couldn’t breathe. She closed her eyes, hoping for a brief moment that it would kill her. But when she opened them again, there were no angels and no devils waiting to carry her off like in the bible stories she read as a child, only the shop owner easing her into a chair, his grip tight and uncomfortable on her arm.

Sorelli took a deep breath, eyes locked on the man in front of her. She suddenly felt very small.

“He was… He was an acquaintance. He really liked the opera… I also knew his brother… and his mistress…”

“Monsieur le Comte?”

She felt bile rising in her throat. The man hadn’t made a connection. She herself had betrayed the relationship between her and the count, in that very moment. A combination of shame and loneliness overcame her and she rose carefully from her chair.

“I have to go. I have to go home.”

A brief hesitation, then the man asked: “Do you need help, Madame?”

She straightened her posture, arranged her hat and lifted her head.

“No,” she breathed and the smug tone in her voice was unmistakable. “I will be quite fine, Monsieur.”

Madame La Sorelli wandered outside in a daze. Sounds of chatter and carriages slipped past her. The world had drifted away, lost its structure. The only solid things she knew were her flat, so close now, the metal key in her hand, and her shoes, helping her feet move across the cobblestone.

She needed a good number of tries before she managed to unlock the door and let herself inside her flat. Her flat… It might have been legally hers, but there was nothing inside this so-called home that she had acquired herself. Everything, from the bed to the little decorations atop the bookcase, was paid for with noble money. Only the best for Philippe de Chagny’s most special friend.

She needed a good number of tries before she managed to unlock the door and let herself inside her flat. Her flat… It might have been legally hers, but there was nothing inside this so-called home that she had acquired herself. Everything, from the bed to the little decorations atop the bookcase, was paid for with noble money. Only the best for Philippe de Chagny’s most special friend.

Sorelli paced the room, still in her street clothes, unsure of what to do with herself. Eventually she sat down on the bed, on what used to be his side and let the tears slip free. There was nothing else she could do.

When she heard the girls in the corps du ballet laughing at her, she imagined the Count was getting a Countess. It was painful, because she was proud and she enjoyed having the man all to herself. But this pain, this horror, that ambushed her in the shop, was petrifying. She thought about the funeral, about his relatives coming to pay their respects, to bid one last farewell. Sorelli would not be allowed this kind of mourning. She would not be allowed to find in comfort in the shared grief, she would not be allowed a shoulder to cry on. In their eyes, she was a being made of flesh and desire, a warm body to hold onto, a beating heart to command limbs to move, on the stage as well as between sheets.

If the wives of noblemen were called women, then she had never been a woman.

Sorelli had always known there would come a day when Philippe would leave her. But he didn’t leave her. He hadn’t grown bored of her, hadn’t found a suitable wife. He had simply died. And she would never know what his last thoughts in regards to her person were. She took of her coat and shoes, and curled up on the side of the bed which had belonged to Philippe, in the few occasions when he had decided to stay the night. Her hands moved above her head and retrieved a small pillow out of the bunch. She held it to her heart and inhaled its scent; it had been a few days since he’d last been there, but if she concentrated enough, she could still sense the hard smell of his shaving soap. His voice echoed in her head; all the words in the world had been spoken in that bed, all the emotions in world exchanged between them. And through the haze of all their conversations, like tiny beacons of clarity, lay all the tones in which he had spoken her name. She buried her face deep into the pillow and called back all the memories of his touches; his fingers brushing through her hair, his strong hands on the small of her back, his lips on hers during those long evenings when they’d ignore every chain that tied them to their oh so different worlds… She knew she would never be the Countess of Chagny – Philippe had told her that enough times – and she knew very well just how the differences between them prevented her from even showing herself at his arm. But in the intimacy of that room, tucked away from the vicious eyes of the world, where they could lovingly stroke each other’s arms in blissful silence, Sorelli could hardly believe that trough the veins she was caressing ran a blood that was any different from hers.

*

There were times during the summer when he would lay in that bed, naked and uncovered, with his back arched and his eyes closed, lost in thought. She would sit next to him, propped on one shoulder, watching the sunset light play through his hair. During those times she considered herself the luckiest woman in Paris, to see the Count so exposed, so beautiful, letting his guard down only for her. He looked so vulnerable there that she would not be able to restrain a small malicious gesture. A long time of silence would pass and then, while the sun was throwing its last rays over their bodies, she loved to idly trace a finger from his hip to his shoulder, taking pleasure in seeing his pores revolt involuntarily underneath her touch and the fine hairs spike up in alert. Philippe’s response was usually a tiny moan of protest accompanied by a boyish smile; then he’d blindly search for her hand, hold it for a second in his and press a gentle kiss on her finger before giving it back.

“Keep your hands to yourself, mademoiselle.”

With those words he’d get up, get dressed and head out to the door. She’d play her next part with enthusiasm, always pleading for one more kiss, for one more caress, for one more hour. He’d always let his fingers linger on the doorknob before granting her one last good night peck on the lips. A moment of such surprising intimacy that she’d get the courage to hang onto his arm and throw another hopeless desire into the void.

“Please stay the night.”

Sorelli never forgot the first time he agreed.

It was autumn and by the time he got to her flat, the sky was dark already. He was laying on his stomach, breathing softly, so young and beautiful in the golden light of the gas lamp. Sorelli pulled the blanket over his exposed back, commenting about the chilly air, before curling up beside him. She brushed a few messy strands of hair out of his sleepy eyes and threw him her most luminous smile.

“Please stay the night, Philippe.” No intent, no expectations, no demands. Just a line from the script that’s been dictating her life in the flat ever since she moved there.

“All right.”

She stared at him wide-eyed. Philippe remained quiet, eyes closed, muscles slumped against the pillows. She had stiffened – a sudden move might have crumbled the dream – and he must have noticed her stillness, for he lifted a sleepy gaze in her direction and asked:

“What happened?”

There wasn’t anything soft about this man’s voice. The elder son who took on the duties of a parent and a businessman at the cusp of adulthood could not afford gentleness anymore. But his tone was calm and his eyes friendly; he wasn’t mad at her.

She couldn’t bare his gaze. “I’m sorry, I just- You never stayed before.”

Philippe scoffed. It was almost a laugh; maybe if he were younger, maybe if he were less tired. He stretched a hand in her direction; the fingers met the cheek and brushed it gently, under the observation of the most beautiful eyes in the world.

“Come here,” he said and rolled on his side. She didn’t move and he shook his head. “May you at least turn off the lamp? One of us wants to go to sleep.”

She complied and felt a hand wrap around her elbow as she turned towards the light.

“Would like to join me, mademoiselle?”

“You know I do,” she replied, quietly, a sob caught in the apex of her chest.

The rain was pounding at the window and the lovers’ hearts were pounding in their chests. Philippe was not gentle like a schoolboy and she wasn’t naïve like a little girl trying on her mother’s wedding dress. She had had many men and he many women. They were never supposed to be each other’s final stop. They were products of a tough life, growing up acutely aware of money and its power, two independent countries, neither ready to give up its constitution. But maybe for people like them love wasn’t a state of existence; maybe it was nothing more than little islands of safety, a collection of breaths taken in tandem with another person. Maybe love wasn’t meant to be the most complicated thing in their lives. Maybe it was meant to be the only moments of simplicity.

 _I love you, I love you, I love you_ , was all she wanted to say. To whisper it from within his embrace and to yell it from the top of her lungs and sing it and to dance it and to let it wrap around her like cloak.

The last time she had seen him they were in her dressing room. She kept holding onto his arm; she could hear the crowd passing outside, but none of those gossip loving snobs could see them, and so she wasn’t afraid to shower him in affection.

“One more kiss…”

“Sorelli, please. I have to go. Raoul is waiting for me and he wasn’t looking particularly well. He lets every emotions under the sun get to him and I am worried; I don’t trust he can get home by himself safely.”

“Philippe, I’m sure he’ll be just fine. One more kiss…”

Who could resist the plea of the most beautiful eyes in the world? Philippe scoffed, but leaned in, meeting her expecting lips half way. Her fingers gripped the sides of his face and drew him closer; on a whim, her mouth traveled south and brushed against his neck, before he peeled her off with an annoyed gesture.

“That’s enough for one evening. Have I not promised I’ll be back tomorrow?”

But Sorelli was too busy looking at the red stain her lipstick left on his impeccable white collar; she must have touched it when he pulled away…

“What?”

She pointed at his neck and Philippe turned furious eyes towards the mirror, assessing the damage.

“Sorelli, you need to be more careful! How am I to go out like this?”

She was already out of her seat, fiddling with a bottle and a piece of cotton-wool. Then she sat back next to him and moved his head to give herself a better angle on the stained fabric.

“I apologize for my carelessness, _monsieur le Comte_. Here, allow me…”

With attentive hands, she rubbed the alcohol soaked ball on his collar, while Philippe sat unmoving and whispered a small apology for his reaction.

Sorelli had always been too afraid to question her feelings for the Count of Chagny. She knew whatever he felt for her could have not exceeded a physical attraction that spiraled into mild affection sometime along the way; she made herself believe it represented her feeling for him as well, and thus love was out of the question.

But there, in the solitude of her dressing room, the intimacy of the gesture gave her courage to imagine, if only for a moment, that he was the last man on Earth and she, the last woman, and nothing that happened behind that door was something that could have not happened outside of it. In that small moment, not longer than a heartbeat in the great scheme of the Universe, every emotion was acceptable.

*

The next morning, Sorelli went to church for the first time in her adult years. She didn’t comply with its rules and didn’t need the judgement. But she was superstitious and she found a small promise of communication in the simple gesture of lighting a candle for her dead lover. In that gloomy morning, she left the house on foot, wearing a modest coat and a black scarf tight around her head. The small church between the two crowded streets, with its obnoxious bells that always woke Sorelli up far too early on Sundays, was now the perfect hiding spot and the only place she felt allowed to mourn. She spent a while in that silence, following the play of the shadows cast by her lit candle on the smoked walls. She’d always been on her own and loved the independence, but the thought of him not being there anymore, to hold her shoes and casually brush his hand on hers in the foyer, filled her with a strange sense of solitude.

She walked in her dressing room and put on her dress, tied up her hair, laced her shoes. Then she sat down on the small sofa, feeling the material with her hands, imagining she could still feel the outline of his body from the many times he’d sat there.

A knock on the door and a few stern words: “Sorelli, you’re due on stage in ten minutes!”

She shook her head and pressed the last touches of powder on her face; how easy it was to hide the marks of all the crying she had done the previous night! A last look in the mirror before she headed out: the prim ballerina of the Opera Populaire, mistress of the Count of Chagny. She sighed and allowed herself a few moments of sadness. Then she took a black ribbon from her drawers and tied it around her hair. It stood out against the pearl white attire and she caught herself grinning. _I knew him. He knew me. And he hung onto me the way people hang onto the last drops of hope._

*

The light came over the audience as she took one final bow and looked up, at the box which once belonged to Monsieur le Comte de Chagny.

_You should be happy, Philippe. I danced for you tonight._

**Author's Note:**

> I have posted a fanfiction with this plot on June 2016. This is an updated version of that fic. At first, I wanted to edit the original post, but, even though the plot points are the same, the writing in this one turned out so different that I decided to make a separate post for it. For me it is a new story, more inline to my current writing style. Hope you enjoyed.


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